Friday, February 13, 2015

In her exhibition called
“Touch My Soul” Zuhal Baysar mentions about the existential conditions of the human
soul. In her paintings there are only
body and water. The artist uses the water as a metaphor of the universe which
is a place that human being created only for his/herself. Although the water seems
to be outside of the body it reflects the depth of the soul. The soul is
painted indirectly under the pictorial plastic the water provides. The important
things are the features and the inner world of the human being. For the artist the body is a tool to visualize
the conditions of the existence.

We can make a
connection between the artist’s
life perception and
Martin Heidegger’sphilosophy.
According to Heidegger the human being is just left on earth. By being left tothe
existence actually human is enforcedly left to the freedom of building up one’s own being.
But first of
all, being left is the absence of freedom itself – as if the inevitability of
the death itself. It is not the result of a choice. And in the situation of being left the human being
establishes his/her own life by choice. In here a forced experience of freedom
is in question. The human being has to make choices in order to realise his/her
own existence. This means it is imperative for the human being to realise his/her
freedom. It is possible to say that Heidegger’s
philosophy can be seen in a plastic form in Zuhal Baysar’s paintings.

The universe that is the place to
realize the freedom in these paintings is the return to a temple within the
inner world of the artist where one takes shelter in from time to time and feels
peaceful. Human being, with his/her weightless existence purified of the outer
world and entirely covered with water, is the subject of some sort of
purification ritual here. Sometimes this universe is a battle field. In this
universe there is everything that makes one human. On the one hand there are
fears, greed, guilt, insecurity, and insufficiency; on the other hand, there is
love and compassion one feels for the beings that add meaning to life, and the
inconceivable power and resistance for self-protection and self-defense against
the threat of extinction. These two opposite poles comprise the essence of the
universe that man hides from the outer world. ‘Being inside’ is being in the
water. The life giving, embodying and cleansing water is a universe of silence
that swathes and illuminates in these paintings. The depth of this universe is
measured by one’s loneliness that becomes deeper and more silent to the extent
he/she lets it be.

Under any circumstance, human being
that carries his/her own private area into “water” becomes free of the
behavioral patterns of ordinary life; he/she is free in water.

The body is sometimes suspended in the air, sometimes
under the rule of water, and sometimes rules the water. However it reflects the
existence of a powerful soul.

Emotional states emerging through the shaping of human
soul by concepts such as order-chaos, existence-absence and eternity become
visualized by an intense emotional expression reflected by the “body” and “water”.

The artist integrates the plastic of the paint
masterfully with the meaning and expression in the painting along with the
concern to create enriched atmospheres within water. Ripples of water take
place on the surface of the painting as abstract forms as well as existing as a
means of expression of the emotional atmosphere within the water at the same
time. As an artist who emphasizes the aspect of the paint that interferes with
the meaning, Zuhal Baysar argues that modern patterns can be caught with the
plastic of the painting and the paint contributes to these patterns as well as
diversifying the meaning.

In her own painting adventure, the artist invites the
audience to “touch” various emotional states of her inner world.